Witch Degrees of Separation: A Witch Squad Cozy Mystery #3

by M. Z. Andrews

  “He wouldn’t hurt me!” she insisted. I could tell she was getting frustrated with me. I had seen my mother frustrated with me on far too many occasions to not know that she had almost had enough from me. What was I supposed to do? Just let her keep thinking that this man that she had dated a million years ago was still the saint that she remembered him to be? It was more logical to think that the lost love had jaded Merrick Stone and had changed him into a different person than the one she knew twenty-five years ago. Why could I see this and she couldn’t? Wasn’t she supposed to be the parent? The wise one?

  “Mom. I saw Merrick today. He’s got anger issues. Serious anger issues. I haven’t gotten a chance to tell you what was going on back at school when I left. Something big happened.”

  She stopped and looked at me nervously then sucked in her breath. “There was another death?”

  I nodded. “How did you know that?”

  She shook her head sadly. “I don’t know. I sensed something in the air. Who was it?”

  “A boy Hugh goes to school with. His name was Ronnie Edwards. He was in Merrick’s riding class today.”

  “In the class you took?” she asked me with wide eyes.

  I nodded. “Yeah. I didn’t talk to him, though. He was kind of showing off for a couple of the popular girls.”

  “How did he die?”

  I scratched the top of Chesney’s head and twirled my finger around his velvety ears. “His body was found broken, next to a broomstick. He was so mangled, Mom. It was horrible.”

  “You saw the body?!”

  I nodded as the memory of what I had seen only hours before choked me up. I tried to speak, but my voice caught in my throat. I hugged Chesney tighter. “Yeah. And his ghost,” I whispered.

  I could see my mom’s face change the minute she knew I had been affected. She came back around the bar and threw her arms around me and Chesney and let me put my head on her shoulder. “Poor Mercy Bear,” she cooed. “You’ve had a rough couple of months.”

  I nodded without taking my head off of her shoulder. “I’m so tired of dead bodies, Mom. I just wanted to get witch school over with and go back to Dubbsburg. Why does this keep happening?”

  She put her hands on my shoulders and pushed herself an arm’s length away and looked into my face. “I don’t know why this is happening to you. But Mercy. You’re strong. You can handle this. You need to be tough for your girlfriends. Some of those girls look up to you. I can see it when you’re around them. Jax especially. They need you to not fall apart for them. Can you be tough?”

  I swallowed hard and fought the tears that were burning at my eyes. Then I nodded. “Yeah,” I whispered.

  “Can you be tough?” she asked again.

  I cleared my throat and said, “Yeah.” This time a little louder.

  “Good. I have faith in you. You can get through this. A death on campus is going to be hard for a lot of people, so you need to be confident.”

  I gnawed on my bottom lip. Confident. I need to be confident. I swallowed hard again. “Mom. I think Merrick Stone killed him.”

  My mom’s eyes narrowed as she glared at me. “Mercy! Why would you say such a thing?”

  “He’s evil Mom. I don’t think he’s a good man. He’s powerful. And has an anger problem. He threatened Ronnie at the end of class today. And then Ronnie ended up dead.”

  “He was found dead next to a broomstick. He fell,” she said weakly.

  I shook my head. “He was too mangled to have fallen from a few feet. He fell off a roof. If I had to guess, he was pushed off a roof.”

  I heard a throat clearing from the other side of the counter and looked to find Hugh poking his head out of the swinging kitchen doors. “All clear?” he asked.

  I looked at Mom. She nodded. “Yeah, Hugh. You can come on out.”

  He split the doors and walked towards the bar. Carefully he leaned against the counter. “So. Did we get everything all figured out?”

  “No, but we’ve made some progress,” I said quietly before kissing the top of Chesney’s head and setting him down on the floor. “Can you take me home now? I’m ready to go.”

  { Chapter Eight}

  Through bloodshot eyes, I sipped on my hot macchiato the next morning. It had been an incredibly long night and I’d gotten very little sleep. The girls all looked equally as exhausted as I felt. Even Sweets, whose favorite meal of the day was breakfast, picked at her food limply.

  “Think Stone would miss us if we skipped class today?” Holly asked, slumping forward to rest her chin in the palm of her hand.

  Jax laid her head down next to her breakfast tray. “Of course she’d notice. Besides us, there are only four other girls in first period.”

  “You’d think we wouldn’t even have class today, with what happened yesterday and all,” Sweets said sadly.

  “Well, we can’t sit around and mope all day, can we?” Alba asked. Her usual vigor for being grumpy was muted, but still audible in her voice.

  “I guess not,” said Sweets lethargically. “I’m just so tired.”

  “We’re all tired,” I said in agreement, poking at my omelet. “Hey, Sweets. You’re a matchmaker. Can I get your professional opinion about something?”

  She perked up slightly and looked at me with interest. “Of course. You can ask me anything, Mercy.”

  “Do you think there’s any way to break a binding spell?”

  “Like what your grandmother did to your mom?”

  I nodded. “Yeah.”

  Sweets considered it. She put a big bite of her cinnamon roll in her mouth while she thought. “Mmm,” she said. I couldn’t tell if she was mmm’ing because of the roll or mmm’ing as she considered my question.

  “There’s got to be a way,” she finally said. “I would think Sorceress Stone would know how to do it.”

  “I can’t ask Sorceress Stone,” I said unhappily.

  “Why not?” Jax asked, sitting up straighter. “You’re my cousin. She should want to help you with anything you need!”

  I rolled my eyes at Jax. “First of all, we’re not real cousins, Jax. Second of all, she’s not very happy with my mother about keeping Reign a secret.”

  “But your mother didn’t do it on purpose!” Sweets cried.

  “Well, I know that, but I don’t think that Sorceress Stone knows that. I have this weird feeling that things are going to be awkward between me and Stone now.”

  Jax shook her head wildly. “No they won’t! I’ll see to it that she treats you better than anyone else here!”

  I put a hand on Jax’s shoulder to calm her. “Thanks Jax, but no. I do not want to be treated better than anyone else here. Got it?” I looked her straight in her bright blue eyes.

  Jax widened them and nodded at me as if in a trance. “Mmhmm.”

  “Jax! I’m serious. I just want to be treated the same. I don’t want you to say anything to your mother. Just like you don’t want people to know that Stone is your mom because you don’t want to be treated any differently. Ok?”

  Jax crumpled into a heap on the table. “Mercy! I just wanted to help. We’re family. Family helps family! Why won’t you let me help you?”

  “You can help me. We need to ask your mom how to unbind two bound people! I just can’t be the one to ask her!”

  “Fine! Then I’ll ask her how to do it!” Jax said excitedly.

  “Ok. But you can’t tell her it’s for my mother and your uncle, though,” I insisted.

  A smile spread across Jax’s face, extending from ear to ear. “You bet!”

  ***

  After class that morning, Jax hung back to speak to Sorceress Stone while Alba, Holly, Sweets, and I waited in the hallway with pert ears. The noise in the hallway was so loud that we didn’t hear most of the initial conversation, but as the rest of the witches finally cleared out, we were able to grab the tail end.

  “But why can’t you just tell me what the spell is?” Jax pleaded with Sorceress Stone.

&nb
sp; “JaclynRose, you know very well that you have no powers and cannot do spells,” her mother whispered conspiringly to her.

  “Yes, I know, but it – it’s for another class. It’s, like, a bonus question. For extra credit. I really wanted to do well and be the first to come up with the answer,” Jax lied.

  We could hear Sorceress Stone’s breath catch in her throat. “And you want me to give you the answer?!”

  Jax hesitated. “Well, not really give me the information, but maybe you could just share it with me?”

  “JaclynRose, that would be unfair to the rest of the students here and you know how I feel about nepotism!”

  The girls and I peeked around the corner to see Jax hanging her head sadly. “But Mooom,” she pleaded.

  Sorceress Stone stood up taller and lifted her chin to look down her nose at her daughter. “No, ‘but moms’. I warned you JaclynRose, that there would be no favors when you began school here.”

  “I know, but…”

  “No buts, either. I can’t help you. Besides, I have my hands full with everything going on with your uncle and this investigation. Things are crazy right now in my office.”

  “If you could just tell me where to begin researching the spell, I’d look for it on my own. That wouldn’t be unfair to the other students,” Jax suggested half-heartedly.

  When her mother paused for several long seconds without a response Jax pounced. “You’d tell any of the girls if they came in and asked you for help finding a spell wouldn’t you?”

  Sorceress Stone sighed heavily before putting both hands on the corners of her bony hips. “Very well. Check the Great Witch’s Library in Hallowed Hall. Adamina Spellman wrote a book called The Witch’s Guide to Spells of Affection. I think I saw a spell in there once about undoing a binding spell.”

  Jax squealed excitedly and threw her arms around her mother’s waist. Sorceress Stone looked down at her daughter disdainfully, refusing to put her hands around the girl, causing a tiny string in my heart to be tugged at. “JaclynRose, really!”

  Jax stood up, her enthusiasm had only been slightly dampened by her mother’s lack of affection. “Sorry,” she said quietly, the right side of her face was red from rubbing against the belt on her mother’s long dress. She nodded politely at her mother and then turned to leave when Sorceress Stone grabbed Jax by the arm.

  “You’re just looking for the spell, correct? You’re not planning to try and cast it?” she asked suspiciously.

  Jax’s eyes widened while she nodded. Jax definitely wasn’t a very convincing liar.

  “Because if you or someone else were to do this spell, JaclynRose. It could be very dangerous.”

  Jax gave her mother a nervous little laugh before smiling at her. “I’m just going to write it down. You know, for the bonus question. I wouldn’t actually do the spell. I’m not a witch, remember?”

  Sorceress Stone pulled her shoulders back and nodded as if she was trying to convince herself that her daughter wasn’t really going to do the spell and she needn’t be worried. She let go of Jax’s arm. “Very well.”

  “Thanks Mom,” Jax whispered before scampering out of the classroom to join the rest of us in the hallway. She had a finger pressed to her lips when she returned to us. “Let’s go,” she mouthed.

  The five of us dashed down the hallway quietly and when we were out of earshot we slipped into an empty classroom.

  “Did you hear what she said?” Jax asked, out of breath from the adrenaline rush of the whole operation.

  Holly nodded. “Your mom isn’t really the hugs and kisses kind of mother, is she?”

  Jax looked down at her shoes sorrowfully before shrugging one shoulder. “Not really.”

  Sweets hit the back of her hand against Holly’s hip. “Holly! Look what you’ve done, you hurt Jax’s feelings.”

  Holly flipped a blonde tendril of hair over her shoulder apprehensively. “Sorry Jaxie.”

  Jax looked up at Holly and gave her a soft smile. “It’s ok. No, my mom’s never been the demonstrative type. She’s never baked cookies with me and she didn’t go to any of my school concerts or gymnastic meets. But I know she cares about me – in her own way.”

  Sweets put an arm around Jax’s diminutive shoulders. “I could tell she cares about you,” she said softly. “She was worried that the spell would be too dangerous for you.”

  Jax nodded and forced a smile. “Yeah, I know.”

  Suddenly it hit me why Jax had been so hell bent on wanting me to be related to her. She hadn’t had a very good sense of family growing up and that was something Jax wanted. Probably more than she wanted to be a witch. I swallowed the lump in my throat and just as I was about to take a step forward to give Jax a hug, Alba stepped forward and put an arm over Jax’s shoulder. “Let’s go, Shorty. We’ve got two more classes to sit through before we can go look for that book.”

  Despite the fact that Jax’s head was buried in Alba’s armpit, she looked up at Alba adoringly. “Ok, and I know right where to look!”

  ***

  “I thought you said you knew where to look!” Alba grumbled as she looked through what had to have been her eighth shelf.

  Jax stuck out her bottom lip and looked down from the ladder she was standing on in the Great Witch’s Library. “Sorry, I thought I did. I used to play in here as a little girl. I was sure it would be with all the love spell books.”

  I looked up from the book I was paging through on the floor and pushed my thick framed glasses back up my nose. Sweets sneezed in a corner, probably from the musty smell of the library. Why did old libraries always smell so dusty anyway? Did no one ever take the time to clean them? What else did librarians have to do all day? If it hadn’t been for the five of us, the place would have been empty. In fact, the librarian had told us she was going out for lunch and would be back around 4. I mean who kept those kinds of hours anyway?

  Sweets sneezed again.

  “You ok, Sweets?” Holly hollered over the balcony that overlooked the rest of the grand library. Technically there were three levels in the library. The first floor, which was where I was sitting cross-legged – inspecting a pile of books. The second floor, where Holly was standing. And the third-floor, which was only accessible by unlocking a black wrought iron gate at the bottom of the staircase – only feet away from Holly.

  “Yeah, I think I’m allergic to – aaa choo!” she sneezed again. “To dust.”

  Jax slammed another book shut. “I’ve looked through almost every love book in this section. I can’t find anything about unbinding two people and I certainly haven’t found a book by an Adamina Spellman. Alba, can you slide my ladder over a little bit? I can’t quite reach the last section.”

  Alba made a production of sighing loudly and rolling her eyes but obliged Jax’s request. “What I don’t understand is, in this day and age, why doesn’t the Institute have all of this cataloged in a computer system?”

  The thought had crossed my mind as well. “It would be handy. This is ridiculous. There are probably twenty thousand books in here!”

  “I would have guessed sixty thousand,” Holly hollered from her corner.

  “You always did like to over exaggerate,” Alba hollered back.

  Holly stepped out from the shelves she was hiding behind and looked down from the second floor. She perched a hand on one hip. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  We all looked at Alba. She looked at each of us individually and then turned around to face her wall of books. “Nothing.”

  “Figures. Alba, you’re just spiteful,” Holly said angrily and walked back towards the row of bookshelves she was combing.

  Alba spun around. “Spiteful! How am I spiteful?” she protested. “I didn’t even say anything.”

  Holly stopped in her tracks and turned around. “Are you kidding me? How are you not spiteful?”

  Sweets took a step forward trepidatiously. “Girls,” she said quietly.

  “I might be honest. But I’m not sp
iteful.”

  “There’s a difference between being honest and being nice about it and being honest to hurt someone’s feelings.”

  Alba shrugged as a smirk played around her mouth. “Eh, honest is honest in my book. If you’re a tramp then I’m going to call you a tramp.”

  “Girls!” Sweets said a little louder this time.

  Holly slammed down a hardcover book that she had just picked up. It made a loud smacking noise that echoed dully through the room and a little cloud of dust poofed up around it. Within seconds Sweets sneezed again.

  “Are you calling me a tramp?!” Holly demanded.

  “If the push-up bra fits!” Alba sneered.

  “Alba!” Jax said disapprovingly, looking down the ladder at her.

  “That’s it!” Holly hollered as she rushed towards the wide curving stone staircase. “I’ve taken about all of the crap from you that I’m gonna take.”

  “Come and get me, Cosmo,” Alba taunted, taking a large stride for the staircase. On her second long stride, her foot caught the bottom of the ladder Jax was standing on.

  “GIRLS!” Sweets hollered at the top of her voice, rattling the window panes and sending all the mice and dust mites scurrying for cover.

  Holly and Alba stopped in their tracks and looked at Sweets with surprise. The sound of the ladder wobbling behind her caught Alba’s ear and she turned around just in time to find the ladder falling out from underneath Jax’s feet.

  “Help!” Jax hollered, grabbing hold of the ledge of a high shelf before the ladder slammed down to the ground with a tremendous cracking sound.

  Jax’s feet dangled high above our reach. “Help! I’m slipping!” she hollered down to us.

  Without thinking twice, Alba stepped back and pointed her finger at Jax, just as Jax’s fingers slipped off of the shelf. In mid-air, Alba caught Jax with her telekinetic powers.

  Jax looked down at the ground with terror in her eyes. When she realized she wasn’t falling, she glanced down at Alba, who was holding her steadily in the air. “Oh, my goodness! You saved me Alba!” she squealed. “Now let me down so I can hug you!”